Could the Universe's Expansion be Compared to Oil on Water?

AI Thread Summary
The discussion compares the universe's expansion to oil spreading on water, suggesting that initial disturbances could lead to the formation of structures like nebulae. It raises the question of what lies at the edge of this expansion, proposing the idea of a "goo of potential energy." However, participants clarify that the universe does not have an edge or a furthest point of expansion, emphasizing the need for a solid understanding of cosmology. They encourage further reading on the topic to foster meaningful questions and discussions. Overall, the concept of an edge to the universe is dismissed as a misunderstanding of its nature.
pilgrum90
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I'm just thinking that the fabric of space reminds me of oil on water in my kitchen sink. If the universe itself started in an equilibrium and a random force bounced into this substance just like adding your favorite dish soap to the water. the oil automatically starts to gather create eddies swirl pushing it self out to the edges... the elements of our universe pushing and pulling away from each other bunching up in some areas and creating our nebula's etc.

Now we understand that the universe is expanding but what if we could travel to the edge of this expansion what would we find? this goo of potential energy just waiting to start moving?


I just never heard of this kind of idea b4 and I thought it might be easier to explain mathematically. The closer you get to the big bang(starting disturbance) in terms of time.

OK just something for you to think about. Please feed back why it's possible or not.
 
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The universe does not have any "edge".

It would be wise to read up on this stuff so that you can ask meaningful quesions.

The FAQs in the Cosmology section are a very good place to start.
 
not edge per se but don't we see the expansion of the universe as a cone keep the model and look at it in terms of the furthest point of expansion. what would we find...
 
No, you are missing the point. There IS NO "furthest point of expansion". That's the same thing as a edge. There isn't one. Do some reading on the basics.

By the way, welcome to the forum and please don't take my statements as overly harsh. This is not really a forum for the thinskinned, and you really DO need to do some reading on the basics.
 

Thread 'Matter density right after the decoupling'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recombination_(cosmology) Was a matter density right after the decoupling low enough to consider the vacuum as the actual vacuum, and not the medium through which the light propagates with the speed lower than ##({\epsilon_0\mu_0})^{-1/2}##? I'm asking this in context of the calculation of the observable universe radius, where the time integral of the inverse of the scale factor is multiplied by the constant speed of light ##c##.
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Thread 'Rutgers finds a transparent Einstein Cross - apparently a dark matter "halo".'

The formal paper is here. The Rutgers University news has published a story about an image being closely examined at their New Brunswick campus. Here is an excerpt: Computer modeling of the gravitational lens by Keeton and Eid showed that the four visible foreground galaxies causing the gravitational bending couldn’t explain the details of the five-image pattern. Only with the addition of a large, invisible mass, in this case, a dark matter halo, could the model match the observations...
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Thread 'Big Bang and Infinite Universe'

Hi, I’m pretty new to cosmology and I’m trying to get my head around the Big Bang and the potential infinite extent of the universe as a whole. There’s lots of misleading info out there but this forum and a few others have helped me and I just wanted to check I have the right idea. The Big Bang was the creation of space and time. At this instant t=0 space was infinite in size but the scale factor was zero. I’m picturing it (hopefully correctly) like an excel spreadsheet with infinite...
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